I remember watching an old bungie vid doc on halo3, and how they were going to make brutes more fun to fight. They talked about how the brutes all felt like bullet sponges… just bodies you shot at… aka gears of war like. They fixed this problem by making more interesting reacting brutes with armor that popped off, and dynamic fights. I think the problem is that the elites are yet again more fun to fight then the “other equally difficult bad guy” The promethians are just boring to fight… You shoot and them… and shoot and shoot and shoot and nothing interesting happens until they die… no reactions… no howls of pain, no fancy armor popping off, and no rag dolls to play with. Just bam bam bam bam bam poof. Promethians were a great Idea, I just think they were not executed properly like the brutes of halo 2.
343i knows about the Prometheans and how boring they are to fight. They recently stated in an article that they tried to end up making them unique and different but in the end it was still the same tactic to kill them.
I’m sure they’ll change it up for the next game.